Stereoscopic dynamic image data which enables a viewer to perceive moving images stereoscopically includes a pair of consecutive still images (pictures) respectively corresponding to the viewpoints of the left and right eyes. A simultaneous picture pair has a disparity corresponding to the left and right viewpoints. The amount of data of such stereoscopic dynamic image data is generally vast. Thus, for example, with an imaging apparatus which captures a stereoscopic dynamic image and once stores the data thereof in an internal limited storage medium, proposed is an encoding method for compressing the stereoscopic dynamic image data.
The H.264/MPEG4-AVC (Advanced Video Coding) (hereinafter simply referred to as the “H.264”) standard compliant with MVC (Multi-view Video Coding) that was developed by the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) is an encoding method of compressing redundant data based on the high correlation between blocks which are approximate spatially or temporally or between blocks in a simultaneous picture pair upon dividing a picture into blocks of small areas and encoding data for each block. With the H.264 standard, an encoding target block is predicted via interpolation processing, motion vectors or the like from a simultaneous paired picture or a another temporally approximate picture in the same picture as the encoding target block, and residual data corresponding to the difference between the block that was predicted (hereinafter referred to as the “predicted block”) and the encoding target block, and prediction information data indicating the information to be used in the prediction are obtained and encoded in accordance with a prescribed syntax element.
Consequently, for example, the encoded stereoscopic dynamic image data is read for each block from the storage medium for image processing or display output in an imaging apparatus, and decoded for block. In the decoding process, the predicted block based on the prediction information data is corrected with residual data, and the original block is thereby decoded.
Meanwhile, when the stereoscopic dynamic image data is read from the storage medium, for instance, due to the deterioration of the storage element or influence of the ambient temperature, there are cases where the residual data or the prediction information data is lost as a result of the data stored in the storage medium being destroyed or subjected to so-called data corruption, and a decoding error arises. Consequently, the original block is not decoded. Thus, in order to deal with the foregoing problem, proposed is a method of correcting a decoding error (for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-319419). In one example, a block extracted from another picture is applied to the location of the decoding error of the picture in which a decoding error was detected so as to correct the decoding error. Note that, in the ensuing explanation, a picture in which a decoding error was detected is referred to as an error picture, and a block in which a decoding error was detected is referred to as an error block.
In the foregoing method, for example, when a block corresponding to an error block is extracted from a preceding picture having the same viewpoint as the error picture and applied to the error block, there are cases where favorable correction accuracy is not obtained due to the difference according to the movement between the extracted block and the error block. Thus, for example, proposed is a method of extracting a block corresponding to the error block contained in the error picture and the simultaneous paired picture and applying such block to the error block. In the foregoing case, since (substantially) the same blocks are included in the picture pair, it is possible to improve the correction accuracy. However, since the block to be extracted is located at a position shifted by an amount of disparity from the position corresponding to the error block in the paired picture, additionally proposed is a method of estimating the disparity of the error block in order to obtain the foregoing disparity.